Frozen Flashpoint

Chapter 23: Looking back and front

Summary: The Speedforce teaching Caitlin and Lyra a lesson.

Caitlin noticed the uncomfortable air around her daughter and tried to redirect the conversation.

Caitlin took a deep breath and asked, "I assume that this lesson is for me and there is another reason for you to take the look of my father rather than explain lightning rods."

She heard sniggering in the back of her head and Frost commenting, 'Smooth, Caity.'

With a mental nudge, Caitlin tried to shut Frost up while waiting for her answer.

Her father, or at least the Speedforce with her father's face, smiled again at her. "You were always so clever, my dear."

Thomas then turned around and gazed out of the windows toward the dark sky with stars outside. "Do you remember how many hours we spent watching the sky, my Snow-child?"

Caitlin's mind was thrown back in time, to when she was laying on that bed, sick, and her dad would spend the entire night with her, watching the dark sky with her and pointing out the different constellations to distract her and make her happy.

It worked. She remembers the warm feeling that would replace all the aches she was feeling. While her mother just kept working around the clock, her dad would return every day from work only to spend the entire night with her.

Caitlin was shaken out of her thoughts from the past when Thomas spoke again. "You were sick, and I wanted to spend as much time with you as I could because I wasn't sure how long we had together."

Caitlin looked at the clone, or whatever she should call it, with wide eyes and asked quietly, "Because of your ALS?"

Thomas shook his head, the smile slipping off his face for the first time as he said sadly, "Because of yours."

Caitlin inhaled sharply and she could hear Frost panicking in her head. 'No, no, no, no, no! She didn't have any symptoms before me! Mother said so, and I stopped them from ever developing.'

Caitlin shook her head and began denying, "No. I didn't even know I had the gene until Frost told me. You were the one who was sick."

Caitlin felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned sharply to see the concerned face of Barry as he asked her softly, "Cait, are you okay?"

But Caitlin didn't answer. Instead, she turned back to face Thomas, who was now wearing a small, sad smile before saying something that caught all of them off guard. "Did you know that most of the lights we see now are stars that died a long time ago?"

Caitlin was speechless because of the topic change, so Lyra tried to fill in with a little awkward tone, "Umm... Yeah. I mean, it's like common knowledge."

"It's interesting, is it not..." Thomas's voice was still calm but had an edge of sadness to it. "All the time we are watching those flickering lights in the sky, we are watching lies, a truth hidden for many years before it's revealed with a deep darkness to replace the mask of light once standing in its place."

Caitlin was starting to lose her grip on her emotions, all of those whiplashes from the random facts thrown at her since she saw the face of her father, and that alone was quite a hit to her sanity. But now the Speedforce wearing her father's face was destroying the best memories she had with him.

Barry finally stepped forward. "Okay, I think we've reached the point where you're doing more damage than good, so if you've got a point, it's time to get to it."

Caitlin was thankful for Barry that he tried to protect her mental health and isn't afraid to go against a force of nature for her, but from what she heard about the Speedforce both from this experience and from Barry's accounts of his last visit, she knew the Speedforce won't relent on her figuring it out by herself.